One of the strengths of Caché is its ability to generate discussion. I don't think anyone can see the film and then resist the urge to talk about it. Whether face-to-face on the walk home from the theater, more comfortably on the couch after watching the DVD, or digitally, on a chatroom, forum or blog on the Internet, you'll want to find out what other viewers and reviewers read, or didn't read, from the film. For example, I saw it with a small group of people, and Caché fueled our conversations for the rest of the night. Coffee and Caché. Very French, if you don't count that not one of us smokes. However, there was a bit of what seemed like a snag in our discussion: while most of us loved it, there was one person who hated it. To our collective surprise, the many-to-one conversation against the dissenter proved the most productive conversation of all.
“I don't get it,” he said. “Who was making the goddamn tapes?”
We threw some ideas at him: “Majid,” “Majid's son,” “their sons,” “there were no tapes; it was Georges' conscience,” “it doesn't matter—”
“It doesn't matter? Of course it matters.”
“Maybe the film's made in a way that allow multiple readings—“
“Maybe the director—Haneke, or however you say it—didn't have a clue about how to end his movie—any ending would have been a let-down and probably inconsistent with the rest of the film, so he “left it open” for movie goons like you to ponder over.”
“That's not fair. I mean, there are plenty of films—some that you even liked—that leave things ambiguous at the end.”
“Sure, but they don't pretend to be thrillers. And they don't start off with a long-ass shot of a videotape, go through a whole plot to find out who the hell was making them, and then leave you with nothing.”
“But you're reading the film—”
“I'm not reading anything. I was watching—”
“Fine, you're just watching the film in a different way than we are. Why does having no resolution make you so angry? For example, in Japan—“
“Come on! In Japan? We're not in Japan, and the movie's not Japanese. Just because I don't pretend to see things that aren't really there, and think the movie's a cop-out for having no ending, doesn't mean you can go film school on me. Read what you want into it, but let me just talk about what's there: nothing.”
“Even if we are reading things into it, that doesn't mean you're right just because you dismiss everything. If we make up nine things, or come up with nine theories, and one of them is right, or even half-right, we still come out ahead.”
.jpg?t=20120527181101)
Article comments